Political revolution is coming. It has to. The world, all of us of different races, philosphies, religious orientations, and differing levels of respect for other peoples and life, cannot continue forever to be subjected to violent manifestations of distrust and disrespect for human life, born of perceived differences.
The United States of America is a world leader and one of the most advanced peoples on Earth, technologically speaking. However, as for practiced philosophies, one might question whether we have advanced much beyond our biased thinking of half a century ago.
Knowledge has increased a thousand fold and is increasing at an ever increasing rate. But, sadly for Mankind, we, philosphically speaking, are still babies. We are still searching, or, perhaps, pretending to search, for acceptance of all other peoples in this nation and the world.
Our advancement in this endeavor has not advanced a great deal in people's minds over what it was when the writer was a child. It has been a half-century of listening to people demanding equality for all, for expressing we all are equal, that we must be the world leader, not only in racial equality, but in the equality of Mankind. It is the responsibility of We, the purveyors of democracratic principles.
Then, to watch just the opposite occurring. Racial discrimination and hate, by blacks against whites, by whites against blacks, by whites against yellows, by yellows against blacks, by blacks against reds, by reds against whites, has not diminished in people's minds much less than what it was prior to our Civil Rights Bill.
Oh, yes, we have laws concerning discrimination. But laws do not cause a change in the way people think and feel, only the way they are permitted to act on their internalized values and biased sentiments. Laws will never be able to rid people of prejudiced thinking.
Prejudism runs rampant over the face of the Earth, based on everything from skin color to religious beliefs and other differences, including such petty prejudices as money earned, job title, location of home, intelligence level of children, whether a person is highly educated or illiterate, to name a few.
Much to this writer's disgust, our people are divided along the same lines. People who profess to being religious and believing in God's word do not want, sometimes do not allow, people of different colors into their churches or private clubs. How in the world can the world's problems, many of which are based on some sort of prejudiced thinking, be solved by people who cannot resolve their own problems?
Actually, one might think of our problems as largely being a
reflection of the world's problems. And, for certain, the
world's problems cannot be solved by "do as I say and as I say it
should be, not as I do" any more than ours can. As long as people who
lead others live by this philosophy, the whole of the situation will not change.
We may wish to walk amongst the different peoples of the
Earth with fine idealistic thoughts that all should behave
according to such high-minded fine principles, but..... And, it is a big 'but' that must be
answered to.
Our leaders want to work with other nations in the quest for
world peace. Let's assume that you are in a group of people
who are being talked to by the leader of another group, a
leader that members of the group really don't trust. And,
the lack of trust in the leader is common knowledge. Indeed, the people in the group have
seen the leader go back on his word, seen him take advantage of his position resulting in
extreme unrest in his own group.
Would you listen to that person and have complete faith in
him? Wouldn't that rather be like a leader such as Sudam
Hussein coming to your town and speaking of world peace?
It might sound good but there would always be deep-seated
wondering and the ineveitable questions as to Hussein's
real purpose, his hidden agenda.
With the Millennium, trust amongst ourselves, respect for
all others, and the natural acceptance of other races must
become dominant characteristics of our own people.
Intolerance, bigotry, and hippocracy must be forgotten
concepts in our language and communications. Actions and
words guided by biased thoughts should no longer exist in
the next millenium if we wish for peace amongst Mankind.
What a world it would be with 'discrimination', at least the
most common connotations, racial, sexual, and religious, not
needing to be in dictionaries because of the lack of its
use. Affirmative action, as an example, would not be an
issue since all people would be treated equally and fairly
because people would know, nor want, any other way to behave.
Where to start? It must be with one of the most worldy
visible groups of people - "politicians". They, and their behaviors, are what most of the world know of
us as a people. They are OUR representatives at
large, the people most responsible for the stereotyping unfairly done to us by other
nationalities.
